The Healing Power of He-Man
by pestilent.defiler
Summary: When Mordecai drinks and watches He-Man, he dreams of Sorceress!Bloodwing. This is the crackiest crackfic I've written to date.


A/N: Oh wow. Yeah. I have no idea. This is an experiment, half angstfic, half crackfic. :D Allow me to explain. I haven't been well lately. I've been watching a lot of He-Man and playing a lot of Borderlands. It is currently 8:37AM, and I woke up at 11:15AM. Think about it. Yeah. The bulk of this was written from 2AM to 7AM, and I've done my best to proofread but I'm pretty sure most of its dubious charm is thanks to the whole "Guess what I wrote at 3 in the morning!"

To my lovely readers and reviewers of "Friend Zone", this is why I haven't been updating it lately. I haven't forgotten or given up, the problem is that lately I'm only capable of this. ;)

* * *

Icy wind assaulted the mostly barren landscape of the Tundra Express. Another blizzard was coming in, and the saner and more sensible inhabitants of the area were settled for a long storm. Even Tiny Tina had her blast doors down.

Mordecai had only meant to come back to his former home to pick up a few items and bring them back to his new place in Sanctuary, but the weather had caught him off guard. That sort of thing was becoming more frequent lately. He knew he wasn't paying as much attention to detail as he should, but it just didn't seem to matter anymore.

He popped the cap on a bottle of rakk ale and drank deeply. It was his first drink in hours, and he'd felt it. Nothing really shut out the feelings anymore, but as always he took what he could get.

He sprawled on his couch, flipping through channels on the ECHO. Hammerlock's new nature show was amusing for a while, but when fifteen minutes had passed and the aging naturalist still had his remaining arm firmly attached to his body, Mordecai lost interest.

Hours passed. Occasionally the hunter would peer out of the window at the weather, but there was nothing to see but snow. Boredom crept over him, filling him with a sense of uselessness that was becoming distressingly familiar these days.

It had all started with the Underdome. Or had it? He picked at the label on his current bottle, thinking. Maybe not. Maybe that slow decline had started when he and his friends had encountered nothing but a giant fanged vagina instead of a treasure trove.

He smiled slightly at the memory of Lilith's "therapy" when he'd joked to her that night about a sudden debilitating fear of vaginas. Leaving her for Moxxi had been a self destructive move, or so Roland had informed him. Roland who was only too happy to take advantage of the opportunity.

"Fuck," Mordecai muttered.

This was why he hated drinking alone. It was too easy to slip into this kind of pattern. When Bloodwing was here...

"No." he nearly growled. His grip on the bottle tightenend, knuckles turning white.

Thinking like that was a bad idea. Thinking like that was not going to bring Bloodwing back. Nothing was.

He placed the bottle carefully on the floor after draining its contents. At this hour there wasn't much on the ECHO, and he finally settled for some weird old show starring a half naked guy that looked an awful lot like Brick who ran around with a giant cat and never seemed to kill anyone. Almost nobody wore pants and no one had nipples. The woman dressed up like a giant bird was particularly interesting. Soothing, almost.

All in all, Mordecai decided it was a great show to pair with large amounts of alcohol, especially when it turned out to be a marathon. Two hours in and he had the catchphrases memorized, though if there was a plot it seemed to be running together. He didn't care.

That bird lady was amazing. She was like a siren, but with feathers. Feathers. He remembered feathers. And sirens. They were both good for cuddling with.

Suddenly, he felt very alone. He shut off the ECHO angrily and sat in darkness listening to the wind. It was utterly relentless, like the memories that wouldn't stop coming back.

"Fuck it." he opened yet another bottle and continued to sit in the dark. Let the memories come.

.

Mordecai didn't remember falling asleep, but that was nothing new. Neither was the fuzzy momentary confusion or the feeling of dried tears on his cheeks.

The small hand that held his though, that was new. He didn't even know anyone with hands that size except maybe the mechromancer, but any scenario that had her holding hands with him was farfetched in the extreme.

He looked at the hand in his, marveling. Around the time it occurred to him to become alarmed, the hand's owner spoke in a low voice.

"Hey, Dad."

His heart stopped for a moment.

"Shit. Shit. SHIT." he thought. When did _that_ happen? _How_ did that happen?

Mordecai steeled himself for the worst and turned to look at her. She looked like...actually she looked a lot like the bird lady from the show. Younger. Definitely more badass looking. But even on Pandora, nobody was going to wear a hat like that. It was shaped like a bird's head with a black beak and spiky black and white feathers...a psycho might wear something like that, but this girl wasn't trying to kill him so that ruled that out.

"Oh good," he smiled. "I'm still drunk."

"No," the bird girl replied, tilting her head to the side.

She tilted it back the other way and stared at him with her ruby red eyes.

"Well, yes," she amended, "but I'm still here."

Mordecai pulled his hand out of the strange girl's grasp, feeling strangely reluctant to do so.

"Do I know you, kid? Lilith didn't say anythin' about a new vault hunter, I don't have any jobs for ya."

"You know me, Dad. I'm not a new vault hunter."

"Kid, I ain't your dad. Trust me."

"You are. Just not by _Blood_."

"Did you just speak in italics?"

The girl tilted her head at him again, seeming to imitate a bird. Her ponytail of dreadlocks swayed with the movement.

"I can't stay here forever, so quit bein' a dumbass, alright? We've spent a lot of years together, Dad."

"Look, kid, you got the wrong dumbass. And quit callin' me Dad, you're creepin' me out."

"Fine. Have it your way, Mordecai." she said, obviously hurt. "But you always called yourself 'Daddy' to me."

"Kinda doubt it," he said, searching the floor for a bottle that wasn't empty.

Bloodwing screamed.

Mordecai fell off the couch hand-first onto a bottle, which shattered. Unmindful of the blood that poured down his arm, he shook the strange girl.

"Was that a recording? Where did you get that? Who are you?" he demanded.

The girl chittered like an angry bird of prey in response. She grabbed his bloody hand with surprising strength and plucked at the glass shards with nails that had suddenly grown talonlike.

"You know who I am. You watched as I was born and you saw me die."

"Damn it, let go of me. You're not my bird, that's just fucking stupid."

"So is drinking yourself to death while you watch cartoons!"

"Last I checked I'm still breathin', kid."

"Good!" she countered and added, "I'm glad."

He snatched his hand away, blotting at the blood with an old shirt from the floor. The girl sighed.

"Mordecai, look at me. Please? I don't know why I'm all back from the dead or whatever, but I need to tell you that I love you. And thank you. And please stop doing this shit to yourself."

He looked up sharply, in time to see the girl disappear in a purple flash. In her place was a bird he knew well. Her sharp ruby eyes seemed to peer into his soul just as they always had. Tears pricked his eyes as he lurched over to kiss her shining black beak once more.

Before he could reach her, a purple flash signified another switch between girl and bird.

"Bloodwing?" he whispered.

"Yeah," she replied, nuzzling his head. She chittered softly.

"I missed you so much, Blood." he kissed her on the forehead and held her close. All thoughts of the utter madness of the situation had left his ale-soaked mind.

"I'm okay though, Dad. I've gotta go, but I have to get you to promise me something first, all right?"

"Anythin', Blood. You know I'd do anythin' for you. Always." he clung to her desperately. "Please don't leave me alone again."

"I have to go, but you won't be alone." she gently extricated herself from his grasp.

"Take care of this for me, okay Dad?" Bloodwing produced an egg from a small pouch and lay it gently on a cushion. "And take care of yourself too. For me."

She disappeared in another flash of purple, and Mordecai was left alone in his chilly home once again.

"Not alone," he whispered to the egg, cradling it gently.

.

In Tina's workshop, Gaige, Tina, and Lilith exchanged hi-fives.

"You think he bought it?" Gaige asked anxiously.

"Yeah girl! You are the most badassedest ghost bird in DA WORLD!" Tina screamed.

"I think so," Lilith replied as she absorbed a small hunk of eridium. "You did great, Killer. Thanks for your help. That damn thing cost me a fortune but I know he wouldn't have taken it."

"I feel totally creepy now, though. That whole thing was weird. Like, really weird. Like, I don't think you're paying me enough weird."

"Don't think about it," Lilith advised.

"And he's gonna have a LITTLE BABY BIRDIE!"

"I guess. I'm gonna take these contacts out now."

"I WANNA WEAR THE HAT!"

"Tina. Deep breaths. Shit, don't press that button! You're gonna scare the-"

An earsplitting recorded screech reverberated through the bombmaker's cave. A small flying rakk-like creature rocketed out of a bag, shedding feathers, bits of dried glue, and a plastic novelty beak all over the humans and the ground before it slammed into a rock wall and lay stunned.

"Poor little guy." Gaige said unconvincingly as she poked at her eye. "Anyone got a mirror?"

.

"So you just found it in one of her old nests, huh?" Lilith smiled.

"Yeah, it's like she wanted me to find it or somethin'." Mordecai replied, stroking the egg proudly.

"I think she did."


End file.
